Baby kidnap suspects seek bail

The one suspect is seven months pregnant

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A Pakistani couple charged with kidnapping a baby and trying to kill his nanny will apply for bail in the Johannesburg Magistrate’s Court next week, after a brief appearance today.

Khalid Ayub and Khadija Khan would remain in police custody until January 28.

The court is trying to establish whether Ayub is legally in the country. Khan was reportedly born in South Africa.

According to the charge sheet, the two also face a charge of robbery.

Draped in a blue and purple shawl, Khan spoke to her father Abdul, her brother Hoosen, and stepmother Zohra. Ayub wore a washed-out black golf T-shirt.

On January 8, they allegedly kidnapped six-month-old Revelation Jones from his parent’s house in Bezuidenhout Valley, and tried to slit his nanny’s throat. They had rented a room in the family’s house.

The boy’s father received a SMS that the couple wanted R100,000 in exchange for the baby’s safe return.

They were arrested in Fordsburg on January 10, following a tip-off from the public.

The baby was unharmed when he was found.

Khan, 36, has three children from a previous marriage: two boys aged two and six, and a seven-year-old girl.

She is around seven months pregnant with her fourth child, which is believed to be Ayub’s.

After their first court appearance last week, Khan’s father Abdul told reporters the couple had come to the house with the baby, but had refused to say where they had found him.

Khan said his daughter was “scared, frightened and was crying a lot”.

No one from the Jones family has been present at the court proceedings.

Dear Judge and Khan's father. She has nothing to cry about. Female prison is the safest place in SA for any woman. They have a hospital with qualified nurses, and she will be taken to an outside hospital the minute the baby starts arriving. After that she will go to the Mothers and Babies section, which is even better than the general prison sections. She's just crying because she was caught, and must face the consequences of her actions, not because prison is a bad place for a pregnant woman.